POLL: Are You A Draft Grumbler?

I don’t pay close enough attention to the greater world of college ball to formulate an opinion on which players are best. I’m pretty comfortable with my read on players from the teams I watch, and how they might fit into the pro teams I follow.

I’m never particularly disappointed in drafts, because I don’t come in thinking I know more than the guys who evaluate for a living (on the actual teams, not the media clowns who would be on actual teams if they had real talent evaluation skills)

I prefer to see how the draft unfolds, then see what the team is thinking with their picks.

To me, this is MM’s first draft, and it shows his vision for the team. Physically dominating. A nice homage to our Easley-Chancellor lineage.

In fact, I wanted to start a thread about how, with this draft, the NFCW, once again, became the physical home of the NFL. We are going back to the days when other divisions shuddered at playing the murderers row of the NFCW, and frequently needed weeks of recovery afterward. Unfortunately, it appears I need more posts or something to start threads.

I paid zero attention to the Cards draft, but the Hawks, Niners, and Rams are building teams that will physically impose their will on their opponents. The NFCW will be survival of the smash mouth fittest, and I’m here for it. Love this style of play.

Maybe all the angst stems from the fact we habitually function in a mode of an “I” cherishing itself

**** if I know

Chapow said:

I just post my honest opinions of the picks. I loved our first 2 picks. I didn't like our next 2 picks. Does that make me a draft grumbler?

Not everyone is going to love every pick. Sorry that seems to upset some people.

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Same here

Personally I enjoy the draft and try to look at each pick with positivity as we really don’t know who will surprise us. There are times when I do just scratch my head or get upset when they take a player I don’t want to root for but mostly I like to look at it with a positivity that I want to feel
About the future of our team each off season.

I grumbled before the draft. It was a great draft. No grumbling. Love JS has had one heck of a year and I feel Mac has to be part of that. Still amazed by the Milroe pick which makes tons of electrifying sense.

Chapow said:

I just post my honest opinions of the picks. I loved our first 2 picks. I didn't like our next 2 picks. Does that make me a draft grumbler?

Not everyone is going to love every pick. Sorry that seems to upset some people.

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That's basically where I am. Like I understand that some people aren't interested in doing deep dives on the prospects pre-draft, and are just excited to see who our new players are and want to be optimistic and hopeful that these are all the right moves. That's perfectly fine; I don't like to tell other people how to be fans. Enjoy the experience the way that makes the most sense to you. Personally, I really enjoy the scouting, the analysis, the strategizing, and the prognostication. I like looking back later and seeing what I got right and what I got wrong, and I like to ask myself what I learned from it. If people think it's "comical" to care about that stuff, then whatever. Escapes are good and I'm not going to apologize for having interests. When I'm analyzing these decisions, I hope I can be flexible enough to give a little leeway in like "I might not have the highest opinion on that player, but I get why they would have gone this route", but if they select five players who I expressed before the draft that I don't think would be good players for this team, why would I say I think it was a great draft? That feels dishonest.

For the "trust the front office" crowd: can we please be above the whole "oh, you must think you know more than Schneider and all the people who do this for a living" garbage? For all the mistakes Schneider has made as our GM over the past 15 years, none of them are more stupid than if he logged onto here and made his picks based on the opinions I've expressed. I don't claim to be more qualified than anyone involved in making the decisions. When a pick is made, I give my opinion independently of who made it. Naturally, some of those are going to differ from Schneider's vision. All 32 teams WILL have made multiple mistakes in this draft. I don't see a problem in predicting what those mistakes will be. I will say though, if I was running the team, I probably would have just put together a highly-regarded draft with some very talented players. That's the benefit of likely being so inept that all your previous short-sighted decisions would have tanked the hell out of the team: you get to pick near the top of every round.

For the "I express my honest opinions" crowd: when your analysis is wrong, own it. People keep receipts. The respectable thing to do is to say "hey, I got this wrong" and use it to make more informed predictions in the future.

Being invested it the process doesn't mean I want the picks I didn't like to fail. I don't have a job that depends on being right about these things. I'd rather be wrong and the team do well than to be right and the team play poorly.

A lot of well thought out post responses. Appreciate that!

Rat said:

I don't claim to be more qualified than anyone involved in making the decisions. When a pick is made, I give my opinion independently of who made it. Naturally, some of those are going to differ from Schneider's vision. All 32 teams WILL have made multiple mistakes in this draft. I don't see a problem in predicting what those mistakes will be.

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That's completely reasonable of course. You watch college football and form opinions about players. Discussing those opinions is interesting, particularly when they are different. I wouldn't have picked an oft-injured TE at #50 as the heir apparent to our oft-injured veteran TE. Now that Arroyo's on the team, I hope he stays perfectly healthy over the course of multiple contracts.

I find draft day grades obnoxious because they take the exercise a key step too far. Everybody knows it's silly to have commentators rating how well front offices did based on how close they were to the commentator's own opinions and yet people just can't help themselves.

I think the Hawks started out strong and finished strong in the draft, but unlike in previous drafts I feel the middle is where we failed.
The draft is about finding value with your picks, and I think after Ammenwori we started reaching (injury-prone TE with no college production in round 2???) or we started getting cute (gadget QB when we already had 20 QBs?).
I believe there were better players at more important positions that were bigger needs for us.
At the very very least we walked away with 2 above-average starters (by 2026 at the latest) with Zabel and Ammenwori, with some other guys potentially making major contributions.

I don't grumble as much as go WTF? But saying that what you see in college may not always be what they use him for in the NFL, also a player may not accel in a college system but used differently in the NFL may feast.

As far as calling this Mac's draft I disagree, this was a Kubiaks draft, looking at it he said I need this, this, and this for my offense to work with Darnold. Lineman check, TE's check, FB's Check, bruiser at RB check, Red Zone big target check, speed on the outside Check.

chris98251 said:

I don't grumble as much as go WTF? But saying that what you see in college may not always be what they use him for in the NFL, also a player may not accel in a college system but used differently in the NFL may feast.

As far as calling this Mac's draft I disagree, this was a Kubiaks draft, looking at it he said I need this, this, and this for my offense to work with Darnold. Lineman check, TE's check, FB's Check, bruiser at RB check, Red Zone big target check, speed on the outside Check.

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I think it's appropriate to say Kubiaks fingerprints are all over this draft with 9 offensive players and 2 defense.
This is also a MM show of confidence as in, I've got my guys up to speed, let's give the O a booster shot.

Good point, def. had to be some picks that were specifically for Kubiak and the type of offense he wants.